


New Rules

by RedHorse



Category: Harry Potter - J. K. Rowling
Genre: Domestic Fluff, Established Relationship, F/M, Foursome - F/M/M/M, Happy Ending, M/M, Not Canon Compliant, Smut, The Potters Live, and SMUT, domestic smut?, polyship
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-08-15
Updated: 2019-12-31
Packaged: 2020-09-01 17:42:39
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 3
Words: 8,294
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/20262001
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/RedHorse/pseuds/RedHorse
Summary: When the boy they've spent most of the past eleven years raising goes to Hogwarts, dynamics shift in Godric's Hollow.





	1. Chapter 1

**Author's Note:**

  * For [trashgoblinwizardparty](https://archiveofourown.org/users/trashgoblinwizardparty/gifts).

> To my finest goblin wife. ❤️
> 
> Thank you to feyrelay for beta reading!

Lily gave up on trying to sleep somewhere around three a.m. She drifted to the kitchen, conjured a single candle, and made tea by its light. While the tea steeped, she looked at the window, which was dark and opaque except for where it reflected the swaying flame, short waxy pillar, and—murkier and half-visible—Lily’s own troubled face. 

She wished James were there, but couldn’t fault him for being away. His active Auror status was a constant source of unease for her, but she loved him all the more for being so committed to it.

She wished Harry were there, but then she reminded herself it was _ good _ he was away at school. He would thrive.

“Lily?” called Remus’ soft voice. He was standing in the short hallway that led to the room he shared with Sirius. His hair was in a terrible state and he was squinting a bit at the point of light in the otherwise dark house. Lily smiled at the sight of him. She had always liked him like this: drowsy, with all his hard, watchful edges softened. 

“Tea?” she whispered back, reaching into the cabinet for a second cup.

She heard Remus’ breath of laughter, then the shuffling of his feet on the tile floor as he came into the room and pulled back a chair at the little round breakfast table.

Lily poured for each of them and carried the cups to the table, her wand under her arm and the candle drifting behind her.

“Are you worried about Harry?” Remus asked, blinking up at her as she bent to set his cup in front of him. Her arm brushed his shoulder. He smelled like Sirius’ cologne, the detergent they all used in their laundry, and a deeper sort of warm musk that Lily could have probably dissected to its every note if she learned animagery like they wanted her to.

“The rule I hate most about that place,” Lily said evenly, taking the chair next to his, “is that all communication must be by owl. What is the purpose of a rule like that?”  
  
The sun was coming up. It wasn’t visible yet, but the darkness outside was permeable now. When Lily glanced at the window again, instead of the reflection of herself and Remus at the table she saw the ghostly outline of the garden fence, and the long, uneven outline of the row of hedge trees like inky thumbprints between the earth and sky.

Remus' voice drew her attention. “Did James and Sirius ever tell you how I cried myself to sleep, that entire first week?”

Lily smiled fondly. “No. Maybe they didn’t notice. I don’t think _ my _ roommates did.”  
  
“That’s what I hoped at the time,” Remus said. “You too, then?”

Lily nodded. “It was so confusing, to be so excited and still cry. I felt…”  
  
“Ungrateful,” Remus murmured. Their eyes held and they smiled again, then sipped their tea while the light swelled. Remus had extended a leg toward Lily under the table and, unthinking, she wound one of hers around it. His bare toe wiggled against her calf and she relaxed more deeply into her chair.

“It would be easier for you if James were here, I reckon,” Remus said quietly. 

Lily shrugged. “Everything is easier when James is here.”

Remus smiled, his brown eyes aglow. “Yeah,” he agreed.

Linked by missing the same man, they sat quietly together, legs still entangled, for long minutes while the sunlight poured golden and warm onto the countertops, the backs of their chairs, the crowns of their heads, the bumps of their knuckles and the scarred surface of the table between them.

When their cups were empty, they wordlessly got up as one to clean up the tea things. Lily always enjoyed tasks like this with Remus. Though she'd had magic for far more years of her life than she'd gone without, still there were certain rituals that felt more right when they were done the Muggle way. James or Sirius would "help" with a bit of offhand magic that somehow felt unwelcome. But without conscious agreement, she and Remus went through each unremarkable step without touching their wands. The cups rinsed out and dried; the kettle drained. When everything was put away, Lily reached for the rag to wipe the counter. Remus, who’d been turned around to close the cabinet, reached for the same rag too.

She’d stepped sideways, and he’d turned, and somehow they wound up with Remus’ arms bracketing her, his pelvis brushing her backside and his chest warm and close on her back. He chuckled and set his hands on her waist to balance them.

Lily’s cheeks heated at the feeling. Remus’ hands were something she’d always covertly admired. They were large and broad and always fascinatingly gentle. She’d catch him touching Sirius--even absently, in passing--and feel her heart thud with the most shameless kind of envy. Remus touched her from time to time, too, especially over the past several years since he’d moved in, deliberately and affectionately or incidentally in the close confines of the house's cozy rooms.

But this was something different; Lily knew it at once. And she wasn’t the only one who noticed the shift, because Remus didn’t move away. He stayed there, his hands lowering down the slope of her sides to her hips, his breath stirring her hair, while Lily grasped the edge of the countertop and thought about his touch with single-minded intensity. His palms were warm, the slight but deliberate pressure electric, and the heat of his body, the sheer _presence_ of him behind her, made her breath short and her skin tingle.

Remus lowered his head and kissed her shoulder very softly, a question. Lily angled her head, baring her neck, in answer. Though Lily had expected another gentle kiss, she got a soft questing bite instead. It was dizzying, the kind of charged feeling that only came when something was long-anticipated. Lily hadn’t felt that brand of nerve-flooding pleasure in quite some time.

Lily, unthinking, pushed her body back into Remus’, and her stomach flipped when she felt the growing hardness there, large and unmistakable and mouthwatering, against the small of her back.

Remus still held her with both hands, one of them now splayed over her stomach, and she felt his heart, hammering as fast as Lily’s, his racing pulse, everywhere they touched. _ A side-effect of blood magic particularly prevalent in werekind _her academic subconscious rattled off. Lily shoved it aside and let the far less rational, primal part of herself grind into Remus until the bite on her neck was anything but gentle.

Then he pulled his head back and his hot breath came in gasps against her nape. He rocked against her, now hard and just as enormous as James and Sirius had teased him for and which reports Lily had taken with a grain of salt. If anything, they’d undersold it. The thought of it was both intimidating and painfully hot.

“Is this okay?” Remus muttered, his voice so low and rough it was nearly unrecognizable, his hands digging so hard into Lily’s hips she winced. 

"_Yes_,” she emphasized. “I’ve always…” she trailed off, and if she hadn’t already had blood racing furiously in every vein, she might have blushed.

“Really?” Remus sounded startled and also, much more himself. The hand on her stomach traveled lower, then paused just over her pubic bone, as though surprised.

“No cock, confirmed,” Lily quipped. “Still okay?” She was braced against her hands and didn’t feel like she could move them to caress or reassure, so she tilted her head and brushed a kiss onto his shoulder.

She felt Remus’ chuckle, in the puff of air on the crown of her head and as a vibration in his chest where he was pressed against her back. She wanted to be crushed under his weight, driven into without mercy. It was so different than how James made her feel and yet somehow just as strong.

The thought of James gave her a moment’s pause, but no more, because Remus’ hand was diving lower.

She was just wearing lightweight pyjamas, a top and shorts, in a faux-silk fabric. Remus’ big, gentle hand slid right under the loose waistband, over her underwear, and cupped her. Lily heard her own choked whimper just as Remus, his cheek against her ear, let out a wondering breath.

“Fuck. You’re wet.”  
  
“Well, _ yes_,” she huffed, but her indignation gave way to short pants when his forefinger nudged aside the damp fabric of the crotch of her cotton panties and stroked the folds of her labia.

“And hot, and _ slick,_” he babbled. He pushed his finger more deeply, exploring, and rocked against her again. Lily imagined his massive cock there instead of his finger and almost came. Then he adjusted the angle, inadvertently pressing the heel of his hand firmly into her clit, and she _ did _ come. Just a little one, a wave of tingling and urgent relief, but in her desperately agitated, emotional state it made her gasp out a sob and drop her head to her forearm.

Remus quickly withdrew. “Did I hurt you?” he asked nervously, arms tightly around her torso. “Lily—”

Lily lifted her head, but before she could speak to Remus she saw something that silenced her. The window was half-reflective again, so that she could see Sirius standing a short distance away, in the hallway where Remus had appeared before. 

Remus sensed him a moment later and spun away from Lily, not totally letting go of her. The hand he’d fucked her with was a supportive weight on her ribcage, two of the fingers still sticky against her bare skin.

“Fuck,” Sirius proclaimed, staring at Remus wide-eyed. “I _ knew _ this would happen eventually. You swore you weren’t interested, but…” 

Remus swallowed hard, as though with difficulty. He was still mussed, and he was still astoundingly and obscenely hard in the worn-thin cotton of his drawstring pyjama bottoms. 

“I thought I meant it,” Remus murmured, chagrined. “I’m…”

“_I_,” Sirius interrupted determinedly, finally ungluing himself from the wall and striding toward them with outstretched arms, “am _ thrilled_.”

He put one arm around Remus and the other around Lily. She had managed to turn herself around and lean against the counter, and now she laughed against his chest, rolled back against Remus too by Sirius’ embrace.

“Ever the voyeur,” she accused affectionately. “Though there wasn’t much to see, was there? Poor baby.”

“I have an avid imagination,” he said primly, pausing to kiss her head noisily, then presumably Remus too; Sirius’ bare chest continued to occupy most of her field of vision. “Also, I have intimate familiarity with the involved parties,” he added, his hand sliding lower on Lily and giving her arse a meaningful squeeze. “Speaking of poor babies,” Sirius murmured, apparently encountering Remus’ cock. “Look how hard she made you, darling. Lily, won’t you do something about it?”

Remus squirmed. “Sirius…” he began uncertainly.

Sirius’ tone adjusted at once, all mockery gone, only soothing and warm. “I know you prefer things one-on-one, love, but, here.” He tucked Remus’ head into his shoulder, then guided Lily’s hand toward the drawstring of Remus’ pants.

She fingered it, staring mesmerized at the shape under the fabric.

“What about James?” Remus’ muffled voice asked, plaintive. 

“He shouldn’t go out gallivanting if he doesn’t want to miss life’s special moments,” Sirius said swiftly. “Come on, he’ll be happiest of all. We should really do this just for his sake, if you think on it.”

Lily bit her lip, smiling at the thought of James. He _ would _ be happiest of all. Just thinking of the look on his face when they told him was all the encouragement she needed. She reached out with her other hand, too, so she could pull Remus’ pants down his narrow hips. She had an impression of ridiculously cut abdominal muscles disappearing into a smooth plane furred with dark red curls, and then quite literally springing out as the elastic swept low enough was Remus’ cock, so hard the foreskin had already stretched back, the bulbous head big enough to fill Lily’s cupped palm.

“Isn’t he lovely?” Sirius murmured. Remus’ breath hitched. Lily slid to her knees, swallowing reflexively at the sight of it so close to her face. They were all standing so close together that her cheek was pressed against Sirius’ thigh when she licked the head. Sirius’ hand, too, cradled the back of her head, and she knew he was watching her, the way he always did when they both had James.

“She’s lovely, too, isn’t she?” Sirius murmured, watching Lily take the head. It was a mouthful, and she knew it wouldn’t be possible for her to take all of him, like she could with Sirius. Maybe eventually, but not today. She tasted the tea on her own breath, the sleepy musk of Remus, and she felt his pulse in his cock echo in her neck and in her cunt. She moaned around him and Sirius rubbed her neck as Remus jerked toward her the slightest bit, clearly holding himself still by sheer force of will despite the strong urge to thrust.

She rubbed the back of his thigh to show her appreciation and to balance herself, trying to relax her throat enough to take more of him, and then raised her hand to the denser curls at the top of his thighs and the soft warm skin between them. His balls were in proportion to his cock—each one a handful—and as gloriously hairy as the rest of his lower half. It almost felt like she was sucking off a wolf, which she hadn’t ever thought would be such an appealing idea…

“She’d like to swallow you, love,” Sirius murmured to Remus. “Go on, give it to her.” 

Lily hummed in agreement, curling her tongue against the vein along Remus’ silky shaft, and he came in a long, warm pulse, then two more, while Sirius petted her and Remus’ arse flexed under her hand. 

He tasted faintly of apples, she thought with bemusement. Vaguely sweet. She waited ‘til she was sure he was done to slowly pull back and swallow, wiping her lips with the back of her hand, and leaned back on her heels. She blinked up at them.

The had their heads leaned together to look down at her. Remus, cock impressively huge even as it flagged, was bare from the waist down and standing in the puddle of his pyjama bottoms, looking at her like she was a mythical creature, and Sirius, his arm wound around Remus’ neck, was hard in his boxer briefs and smirking faintly like he was responsible for all of it. Lily rolled her eyes and smiled at them. As soon as she began to get to her feet, they each maneuvered to reach down and grip one of her arms. 

Sirius then lifted her by the waist and set her on the counter, hiking up her legs around his waist. Lily leaned her cheek on his shoulder as he lined up. She was so wet and ready, he went in on the first, long thrust, all the way, smooth and satisfying. She sucked in a breath through her nose and threw her head back, and only then realized that Remus was there too, his chin hooked over Sirius’ other shoulder. He looked dazed, fascinated, satisfied, all the things that Lily wanted for someone she loved so much. She moved her hand from Sirius’ waist and laid it against Remus’ cheek. They smiled at each other.

“Merlin, fuck,” Sirius hissed. He always swore when his cock was in someone. (When he bottomed for Lily, though, he only made little, pleading whimpers.) “The way you took him, and how you struggled with it. How did it feel, sweetheart?”

“Big,” Lily admitted, winking at Remus. He leaned his head against her hand with a rueful smile. The friction from Sirius’ thrusts was building from a ripple to a delicious wave. Lily felt too big for her skin. “Harder,” she instructed, letting go of them both so she could lean back on the countertop with both hands, upsetting the canister of loose leaf tea so it spilled all over the floor in a dry, fragrant shower.

The change in angle—and Sirius’ obedient pistoning—made her deaf to everything but the sounds of his hips slapping into her thighs and the soft tap of his balls against her arse. She tightened around him, breathing out through a longer, lingering orgasm that didn’t fade entirely until Sirius finished, too. She’d always loved that feeling, the hot pressure, the sense of being invaded and marked.

She held onto him while he breathed through the lingering ending. He was so hypersensitive afterward that he always winced as he pulled out. This wasn't an exception. Remus reached between them to gently clean Sirius' come from both of them, bearing Sirius' weight as Sirius sagged against his chest. 

"I'll never look at that tea towel the same way again," Lily quipped, watching Remus toss the spent rag aside. He stroked her thigh and laughed.

Wincing at the sharp hardness of the edge of the counter, Lily made to scramble down, and Sirius put out both arms to balance her. Then he tugged her against his chest and wound his arms around her back. Remus shuffled up behind her and then she was squeezed between them. Normally she didn’t like this kind of thing—too claustrophobic—but she found herself strangely charmed by the way Remus was pushing his nose up against the place on her neck where he’d bitten her.

“Okay, love?” Sirius asked.

“Yes,” said Lily and Remus, then giggled.

“That’s good,” Sirius said, rubbing Lily’s back. “Please, let’s Floo James; I have _so many_ plans.”


	2. Chapter 2

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Unedited and horribly self-indulgent.

Lily found out that James and Sirius were sleeping together on the same day that she found out she was pregnant with Harry.

It was a confusing day that began with brunch with Petunia.

Lily got dressed that morning in Frank and Alice Longbottom’s spare room, which was a low-ceilinged, later-timed addition to their cottage in Sparringwood of highly suspicious origins. In a fashion typical of all Frank’s heirlooms, it appeared to have been occupied by reckless, magical experimentalists in the past. That meant that while the spare room was normally oriented on the ground floor, it sometimes drifted around the house like an errant lift, so that Lily was never sure exactly which part of the house she’d step into when she opened the door in the mornings.

She’d been over for three nights, and so far she’d arrived variously in the kitchen, the cellar and, embarrassingly, Frank and Alice’s bedroom.

Wondering why the thought hadn’t occurred to her sooner, she peered out the window to try to divine this morning’s location before trying the door. She was definitely at ground level, so at least she wouldn’t accidentally walk in on Frank in the shower or something, she reasoned, but she was still cautious as she opened the door, knocking several times and waiting for a response from the other side first, just to be safe.

She came into the foyer, having apparently been routed through the house’s front door. When she frowned over her shoulder, the spare room had already stolen away, and she was looking out over the tidy lawn and hedges outside.

Eight years in the wizarding world and she continued to feel like a starry-eyed imposter, Lily thought wearily, stepping over Frank’s discarded Wellingtons and roaming through the rabbit’s warren of rooms separating her from the kitchen, where she could hear a kettle whistling.

“Good morning, Lily,” said Alice, wearing a soft pink bathrobe and a sweet smile. She had been mildly ill the day before and still looked peaked, watching Frank assemble all the things for her tea into a little dance to make her smile.

Frank was damp from the morning’s misty rain and mud-splattered above the knees. Apparently he’d already been out to feed the handful of sheep and goats they were keeping in the little stable on the property, intending to make their own cheese.

(The popular pastime of post-Hogwarts Pureblood heirs was, apparently, moving into one of the family’s minor houses and taking up absurd hobbies. In James’ case it was Godric’s Hollow and broomcrafting.)

Alice clapped dutifully when the cream pitcher leapt up to splash a little of its contents into her cup then took a bow to conclude the performance.

“Will you do Lily’s, too, love? But maybe the normal way.” Alice kissed his cheek then scooped up her cup and came to sit at the kitchen table by the window, pointing to the opposite chair. “Are you joining me?”

Lily slipped into the indicated chair and put her elbows on the table’s edge and her chin in her hands. “Yes. I’ve nowhere to be ‘til I meet Tuney in Little Whinging.”

“Oh, yes,” Alice said, her voice carefully neutral. Frank came up behind her, carrying Lily’s teacup. She thanked him as he leaned past his wife to set it in front of her.

“How’s your sister getting along? Alice says she’s married now.”

“Yes, and they bought a house, apparently,” Lily said, picking up her cup and taking a sip. It was the perfect level of sweetness from the pinch of sugar that Frank had judiciously added.

“I could ask if she has room for me,” Lily said hesitantly. “If you’d like me out of your hair.”

Alice’s eyes widened, then narrowed. “Don’t you dare. If you stay anywhere but here, I’ll never forgive you.”

“Neither would I,” Frank said immediately, waving his hand to Summon over his own cup and saucer. “Unless you  _ wanted _ to go home, of course.”

Alice shot him a disbelieving look, but he was already wincing.

“Not that—I only meant, if you and James were to—” 

Seeing his awkward misery, Lily couldn’t help rescuing him. “I don’t think James and I are going to patch things up,” she said, unable to totally mask the sadness in her voice. “But I know what you meant. And thank you.”

It was a relief to leave the Longbottoms. They had an ease with each other Lily didn’t understand, that made them seem older than they were, and far older than  _ Lily _ was. She couldn’t imagine being so happily  _ settled _ , not when a restlessness had been building in her heart ever since graduation, with no prospect of relief.

She took her broom, the one Euphemia had given her the first Yule after graduation, when Lily had finally agreed to go home with James. As always, gripping the handle sent Lily a flash of memory: Euphemia’s kind face, and the tingle of her friendly magic on Lily’s hair when she’d taught her how to cast a Charm so that she could fly somewhere and arrive with everything in order no matter how high she flew or how brutal the wind. The lady was easy to miss.

That day seemed long ago. It marked the beginning of the end of things with James, in hindsight. He’d seen it as the first day of a certain, mapped-out future for them, and Lily had seen it as the mouth of a tunnel too narrow to turn around, too steep to crawl back out of.

Petunia was waiting at the table she always chose, in the restaurant where they always met. It was the kind of place where everything was floral: the cloths on the round tables; the pattern on the china; the scrolling rose wall paper; the still-lifes hanging atop.

And there were Petunia and Lily, an irony that Lily had remarked on once but Petunia hadn’t noticed (deliberately, Lily thought). And, symbolically, there was Dudley, too, fat and slumbering in his pram.

“Hi Tuney,” Lily said, leaning in to kiss her sister’s cheek before she sat down. Petunia beamed up at her with an uncharacteristic sincerity that startled Lily. “You look well. And how is my sweet nephew?” Lily leaned over to smile at the round-cheeked face, but Petunia nudged her away with a nervous little murmur.

“Don’t wake him,” she begged. “He’s just gone down. He sleeps like a wonder; we’ll have time for tea after lunch if we’re lucky.”

Lily reluctantly sat down at that, a little disappointed, and maybe a little relieved. She still wasn’t sure what she was meant to do with babies, and the first time she’d held Dudley he’d hollered loudly then soiled his diaper, and somehow Petunia had assigned Lily the blame for both of these unpleasant reactions.

Petunia had announced her pregnancy to Lily in just this place, nearly a year before in fact, between Yule and New Years. Lily remembered how she’d looked, straight-backed in her chair and flushed with color that permeated her careful painted-on makeup. She’d leaned forward and murmured, “I’m pregnant!” and promptly clapped her hands over her mouth, as though to contain a little exclamation. It had taken Lily a few seconds of blinking silently before she realized that in Petunia’s opinion, this was good news, and then she’d tried to look suitably congratulatory. Later in the meal the waiter had brought their platter of oyster canapes and Petunia hastily excused herself to be sick in the lavatory.

Now Lily looked at the menu and smiled at Petunia slyly. “Can we order our old favorite, or does it still disagree with you?”

“That was only the first trimester nausea,” Petunia said primly. “Order what you like.”

“The oysters to start, please, and a glass of water,” Lily told the waiter. “Thank you.”

“Thanking someone for doing their job,” Petunia observed, with a fond smile that Lily found condescending, but then again, maybe it was just her mood. “Same old Lily.” Her gaze slipped toward Lily’s hand, resting on the table, her finger bare. Lily rolled her eyes.

“Just ask.”

“Still no proposal from— what’s his name?”

“James. No, he hasn’t given me the proposal I don’t want. Thanks for asking.”

“You’re not getting any younger, Lily,” Petunia said sternly.

“I’m nineteen!”

“Exactly.”

Lily put her head in her hands. She wasn’t sure if the throb between her eyes was the same head ache she’d had every afternoon for two weeks, a new and unhappy trend, or if Petunia’s efforts to replace their mother had finally pushed Lily to a breaking point.

Then the waiter brought the canapes, and the smell ignited something fierce and unignorable in the pit of Lily’s stomach. She shoved her chair back from the table and glanced up at a pale-faced Petunia just long enough to say, “S’cuse me,” before she fled to the restroom, arriving just in time.

The wallpaper was floral here, too, she saw as she rested her forearms on the porcelain bowl in the aftermath. From the mopboards to the ceiling, and the ceiling too. A dense forest of tiny, flowering lines, looping back and forth, enough to make even a settled stomach turn over.

“I know what you’re going to say,” she told Petunia when she got back. She cautiously inspected the table, but there were no canapes in sight, so she sat back down in her chair and fixed Petunia with a firm look. “Don’t say it. I’m  _ not _ . I’ve just been under the weather.”

Petunia, for once, didn’t launch into an argument immediately. She pressed her lips together, and simply said, “Are you sure?”

“Yes,” Lily said adamantly. But of course she wasn’t. She really, really wasn’t. She moved things around on her plate and was grateful to Dudley when he woke with a squawk and cut their afternoon short. She didn’t look Petunia in the eye when they said good-bye.

*

Alice wasn’t home when Lily got back to the Longbottoms’ cottage, but she arrived an hour or so later, in time to discover Lily sitting in front of the clawfoot tub where she’d set up her copper cauldron, the dissipating fumes of the fragrant Telltale Potion still swirling around her.

Alice’s eyes widened from the bathroom doorway, then she came in and sat next to Lily and looped her arm around her shoulders. Every girl in the Gryffindor dorms knew the scent of the Potion; how many times had it been brewed over the years for one friend or another? Fortunately, each time Lily had caught that peppermint scent, the brewer had a result that relieved her.

Alice asked, calmly, “Well?”

Lily lifted her forehead from her knee and peered at Alice, then nodded at the cauldron. “Have a look.” 

Alice leaned over, and Lily watched her face as she saw the residue in the cherry pit at the bottom of the cauldron was blue, not red. She leaned back and held Lily a little more tightly, rubbing her shoulder.

“Will you tell James?” she asked, solemnly and without judgment. Lily tilted her head to rest it against Alice’s shoulder.

“Yeah,” Lily said. “I have to.” It wasn’t a question, Alice nodded and kissed the top of her head.

“It’ll be alright,” she said. “Come on, now. Up off the floor. I brought you the one thing that always cheers you up.”

“Wine?” Lily let Alice pry her off the floor and nudge her toward the door.

“No, we have some of that in the cellar. I meant books.”

Lily was helplessly interested. “What kind?”

Alice laughed, but paused in the middle of the room. Lily glanced back and saw, for a stolen moment, that Alice was looking back at the cauldron, her expression unmistakably wistful.

_ Oh _ , Lily thought, then was ashamed to have seen what she saw and hastily averted her eyes. 

“Well, don’t tease me,” she said, backing through the door with a grin. “Where are they?”

*

Lily figured she needed to tell James in person, but the idea of sending him a note, with a place and time she’d have to stick to, made her wrists prickle with the threat of hives. So she paced around in her little roaming room until she finally summoned the necessary resolve, some time around ten o’clock that night, then Disapparated directly to Godric’s Hollow.

The wards made her itchy a moment then subsided, and she strode up the front walk and almost knocked on the door. But the thought of waiting there for James to answer, so she could deliver news like a Muggle postman, was too miserable a thought to bear. So she went in.

So many coincidences led to that moment. That Lily had ordered the canapes, driving her here in the first place; that she hadn’t owled ahead; that she hadn’t knocked; that Sirius and James had chosen the stairs as the ideal location to plant James on his hands and knees, naked and panting, Sirius’ bare arse thrusting against James in an unmistakable manner while Lily stared.

They hadn’t even noticed the door opening, she thought with wonder, hearing James grunt, Sirius hiss, the slap of flesh. Sirius was rangier, leaner than James. The tendons in the backs of his straining knees and thighs stood out with the effort of maintaining the angle and fucking into James in a steady, brutal rhythm. Between his spread legs, Lily saw his pink, swinging balls strike James’ bigger, hairier pair, drawn up tight like they were when he was about to come.

It had only been a few seconds, but felt like a lifetime or two, when Lily’s wand fell out of her lax hand and struck the floor with a sound much louder than it ought to have been.

Sirius shot a look over his shoulder, then sprang away from James with a panicked little exclamation, giving Lily an eyeful of his erect cock and James’ gaping hole for a split second before James, sluggish, like he hadn’t realized what was going on, sank down onto the stairs then slowly rolled onto one hip and blinked over at her.

Lily should cover her face, turn away, feel an emotion other than abject fascination, but instead she stood there, looking at them both, while Sirius panted and stared back and James blinked sleepily.

“Lil?” he asked. There were a few tears on his cheeks and his mouth was red and wet-looking. “You came back.”

Lily couldn’t stop staring, feel anger, or grant either of them any respite from her roving look, but she could kick the door open with her heel and summon her wand.

Her mind felt totally blank, and yet she opened her mouth and heard herself say calmly, “Don’t let me interrupt.”

Sirius’ eyes narrowed. He still hadn’t made any effort to cover himself up. James bit his lip.

“Are you mad?”

“No,” Lily said, folding her arms and leaning against the now-closed door behind her. She looked at Sirius and raised an eyebrow. “I said go on.”

He looked he suspected a trap. Lily let out a huff of breath, her gaze deliberately falling from his face, down his broad but skinny chest toward his cock, which seemed, if anything, harder for the interruption. “You obviously want to,” she goaded, letting her expression be open and warm when she tentatively met Sirius’ eye again. “I want you to. And poor James. Look at him.”

James  _ did _ look pathetic, leaking against his lean abs, long-limbed and spread out on the stairs with his thighs still scissored so Lily could see where he was red and stretched.

She felt surprised, but the sort of surprised  _ what the fuck _ that was closely accompanied by a resounding  _ I should have known _ . It was the best-laid mystery in a good novel, the path to the revelation riddled with clues that seemed unmistakable in hindsight. 

Sirius finally took Lily at her word and went to James, maneuvering him back into position and holding himself steady by James’ hip and shoulder as he bent over him and buried himself again in one hard thrust.

James had already been close, but now, with Lily watching, he looked feverish, writhing back against Sirius each time he bottomed out and ground his hips against James like he wished he could go deeper yet.

Sirius cocked his head and looked at Lily out of the corner of his eye. “Like this?”

“Yes,” she said, her voice surprisingly cool though her pulse was thundering in her ears. She wet her lips. “But give him a good slap.”

She saw Sirius’ dimple flash as he quirked a smile, then he twisted his head forward, leaned back from the waist, and the next time he drove in he gave James a quick, sharp slap on the right arse cheek that made the flesh jerk and James bellow, muffling it against his forearm.

“Harder,” Lily instructed. She’d meant he should thrust harder, and though he did, he also hit James again, with the other hand, harder yet.

James came. Sirius swore, pulling out, still hard, and looked at Lily again with his hand around his own shaft. He looked panicked, like he’d done something wrong, but when his eyes caught on Lily’s it was as if he couldn’t look away, couldn’t help stroking himself fast and hard, coming half against the wall in the stairwell, half against his own handprint on James skin.

Listening to them both gasping, smelling sex and semen, it struck Lily that she’d been tempting the universe earlier this evening when she’d become so certain that nothing in the world could seem bigger or more significant in her life than the possibility of a baby. Now here she stood, a minutes-old revelation that had as much to do with Lily as with James and Sirius spinning the world on its axis, comparable only to the day she’d been told she was a witch.


	3. Chapter 3

The room was cool, even sandwiched between Sirius, who was draped over her back, and Harry, who had burrowed like a small, dark-haired canon-ball into her torso. James must have left the window open, as he tended to during each full moon.

And through it, along with cold air, voices carried.

Lily disentangled herself from the other people in the bed, scooted down to the foot of it and swung her feet to the floor. Like any piece of furniture enlarged with expansion Charms, it had unexpected little planes and valleys that tilted her to and fro before she reached the floor. Then she padded to the moonlit window.

James and Remus were standing in the garden, James in his bathrobe, Remus stark naked, she was fairly sure, though most of his body was shielded from view by James. They were arguing in terse murmurs.

Lily reached for her own robe, shrugged into it, then hopped neatly over the windowsill and walked out to join them. Remus saw her first and immediately covered himself with his hands just as James turned.  _ Pity _ she thought, almost making herself laugh, but schooled her expression just in time.

“Hi, love,” she said to Remus quietly, carefully, pausing a few steps from the house. “What’s the matter?”

Remus’ eyes flickered to the window; his shoulders hunched. James’ mouth twisted in a combination of frustration and sadness that seemed to be an expression he reserved for Remus. Remus, who was already taking slow steps toward the treeline, away from the warm nest of the house. He never stayed long, and when he did he was mostly-silent in Lily’s presence, his painfully sweet smile only coming out for Harry. 

One step, two, then Remus was running in earnest, fast as a wolf, lost to the darkness.

“Why didn’t he have you go out with him?” she murmured to James, stepping close to his side and touching his arm, a small comfort but the only one she could offer. They ordinarily met Remus for the full moon, save the months he’d been gone, embedded with Fenrir. Now that Fenrir’s reign was toppled, Lily had assumed they’d see more of Remus, not less. His absence was a steady little pain near her heart that she knew James felt more deeply, and Sirius deepest of all.

“He’s being stubborn,” James said quietly, sliding an arm around her back. “Is the baby up?”

“The baby” was four years old, but Lily didn’t correct him. “No. Yes. I mean, he was, but Sirius brought him to our bed and now they’re both out like a light.”

James groaned, steering Lily toward the front door instead of the window. He looked down at her bare feet with a frown, but though the night was cool, it was still summer and the ground was nearly warm on her bare soles.

“If we don’t keep him in his own bed, he’ll never learn,” James said halfheartedly. Lily politely didn’t point out that it was James, more than anyone else, who was responsible for their ongoing bedsharing. When Harry was an infant James had been horrified by the thought of him alone in his cradle. He’d been horrified by the idea that Harry would fail to be in someone’s arms at all times, actually. But with three adults on hand, the task of spoiling a baby was made easier, Lily supposed, because it hadn’t seemed like a bad idea at the time.

Just as no one really cared that Harry still made his way into their bed more nights than not.

“It’s about Sirius, then?” Lily asked James, following him into the house, shutting the door softly behind them. Her whispers sounded loud enough to wake the dead, so she picked her wand up from the rack by the fireplace and cast Severus’  _ Muffliato _ , even though seeing it used always annoyed James.

But James was, apparently, too distracted to care. He dropped down into the squashy sofa, one arm over the back in invitation, and Lily fitted herself under it, up against his side, warm and firm through the rough terry-cloth of his robe.

“Sometimes only two is nice,” James said, his fingers trailing up her arm. It might have seemed like an absent touch to someone who didn’t know him better. “Like us, at first. Remember?”

Lily smiled, drawing her knees up and turning so his arm was around her back and her calves were in his lap. “Yes.” From their first kiss early seventh year until eight months out of Hogwarts, the world had sparkled, perfect and limitless, and there had been a subtle ache in Lily’s hands and feet whenever she wasn’t touching James. 

“Remus hasn’t…” James swallowed, and Lily realized he felt like he was about to share a secret he didn’t feel was his own. She waited, and James lowered his voice further yet to whisper in a rush, “He’s never been with anyone but Sirius.”

Remus wanted Sirius. Only Sirius. It pained Lily, but she couldn’t pretend not to understand. And though she knew she shouldn’t, she couldn’t help thinking that maybe one day his feelings would change.

She thought that over. She wanted Remus to have what he needed but selfishly, she wasn’t willing to let Sirius go. Among other things, like his talented tongue, she would miss the stupid jokes he told Harry and the way he kissed her cheek, then rubbed his nose against her hair, without even seeming to realize he was doing it. She couldn’t spare him, even temporarily.

“Why don’t we make up the second bedroom?” She shuddered at the thought, as it was full of piles of the dusty objects and furniture they’d found in the house when they moved in, and which they’d shrunk and stored instead of dealing with it properly. But for Remus, it would be no trouble. She thought of having him near, around the dinner table, Harry in his lap, and knowing for sure he was safe during the moon and in-between too, and excitement made her talk faster. “It could be for him and Sirius. You can tell him I won’t expect his services down the hall,” she added slyly, “if that’s what he’s worried about.”

James looked at her like she was unfamiliar, and, she thought smugly, with a bit of awe. He craned his neck down at what had to be an uncomfortable angle to kiss her, and only managed a quick brush of her lower lip, but it still made her smile.

“You wouldn’t mind that? It wouldn’t be strange?”

She shook her head. “Of course I don’t mind. It might be a bit strange for a while, but we can manage it. Anything for Remus, after all.”

James pulled her into his lap so he could kiss her properly. His long fingers were cold even through her robe. Predictably, he was hard between her legs and, predictably, she was slippery wet in return. Managing a toddler meant that sex was quick and unplanned, in stolen moments like these, so without even speaking they were moving in accord to rearrange their night clothes, free James’ cock and ease Lily into position, straddling it.

“I doubt this was what  _ Sev _ had in mind when he invented his spell,” James said smugly, pulling Lily firmly down by the hips. Her indignant impulse on Severus’ behalf was drowned out by the sweet satisfaction of taking him in, the slow drag of friction on all that eager skin making her eyelids heavy. She put her cheek against James’ temple and breathed through the vague burn of taking him all at once like this, and in a position that made her feel so tight, then she began to lift herself back up, relishing the drag of his cock against her cunt and the singing tension in in his body where her legs pressed against his hips and thighs.

She rose all the way off and sank down several times, ‘til her thighs began to burn and she lost patience. Then she stayed lower, rapid shallow jerks that kept him nested inside and felt like heaven, especially the spark of feeling that leapt from her clit every time she ground against him, and she brought herself off like that, with a gasp against his neck.

James rolled her over swiftly, spreading her out under him, then held her legs and sank back inside. Three rough thrusts and he was done, too. Lily, in a moment’s panic, grasped her wand and swiftly neutralized all the opportunistic little sperm with a spell she’d mastered after her unexpected pregnancy with Harry. James, his face buried in her ribs, heard the incantation and chuckled.

“I ought to just neuter you,” Lily said pleasantly, letting her wand roll back out of her hand and onto the end table. “Simpler.”

James tightened reflexively under her hand though it was an obvious joke. He was sliding down her body now, and Lily let her legs fall open, staring down at the shadowy shape of his head as he licked their combined juices off her still-sensitive skin in long, hot passes of his tongue, warming her up enough that by the time she was done, Lily was wrapping her legs insistently around his shoulders, urging him up nearer her clit.

This didn’t take long; the second one was always quick and left her a little dizzy. She also forgot to release James between her thighs until he made a muffled plea.

“Oops,” Lily said unapologetically, letting him go belatedly. He laughed and rested his cheek somewhere near her navel, hugging her loosely around the hips, and predictably, he was asleep within three or four seconds, tickling her with his little muted snores.

Uninterested in explaining their precarious position to Harry, Lily resisted the urge to drift off herself, wriggling out of James’ sleepy grip. She cast a few cleaning Charms on James, herself, the sofa upholstery, and then each article of their clothing for good measure. Then she made the most of the lingering  _ Muffliato _ by washing and putting away the supper dishes left in the sink. Sirius had cooked which made it her turn, but she always put it off, stubbornly, delighting in the fact that her home was in this way unlike her childhood one, where a dirty dish never lingered more than a few seconds and each room was kept spotless.

Petunia was keeping that Evans tradition alive, unfortunately, but Lily was a departure from her upbringing in this way just as in all the others. The absent thought of her mother, apron-clad and slaving away to meet a constant, exacting, and meaningless standard, made Lily pause with a combination of disappointment and affection. She missed her parents. She was always torn between wishing they knew James, Sirius, and Harry, and also being relieved she never had to explain everything to them.

Fortunately, the Wizarding World was inclined to take unconventional unions in stride. When Alice brought Neville over for his first “playdate” with Harry when the boys were barely crawling, and Lily had awkwardly explained why Sirius Black was emerging, yawning and half-clothed, from the only bedroom, Alice had been surprised but not shocked.

Seeing Lily’s discomfort, though, she’d divined that this was another area where Muggle society differed from Wizarding, and had assured Lily there wouldn’t be many raised eyebrows. “After all,” she’d added, conspiratorial, “the Meadowes make a daughter their heir, and only let her marry into another family if she can take  _ all _ the sons.”

Shocking Petunia with her ongoing lack of marriages despite the persistent presence of not one but two men in the house was a guilty pleasure, Lily had to admit, more than a hardship.

The dishes didn’t take long, even without magic. Her little chore completed, Lily noticed the sun was coming up, the stubborn moon still visible. The garden needed a thorough watering, and Lily thought she caught a glimpse of a gnome despite her painstaking efforts to repel them. Among the magical plants were the nostalgic Muggle ones, like a homely tomato vine, heavy with still-green fruit, and the roving patch of strawberries Harry always raided when the fruit was still pink and sour.

She yawned widely, left her post to check on James, still snug on the lumpy couch, and then she nestled back into the space between Sirius and Harry. The curtains were drawn, Sirius had come to bed late, and Harry’d exhausted himself in the garden the night before chasing fireflies. With any luck she’d manage a couple hours before they woke her.

*

Remus was convinced, eventually, but it took three weeks and another moon, which Sirius and James spent with him this time. Lily was watching Harry eat oatmeal when they returned from wherever they’d gone to run, leaves in their hair, touching one another impulsively, smelling like soil and creekwater.

“Dad! Sirius!  _ Remus _ ,” Harry exclaimed, in his excitement flinging a lump of oatmeal halfway across the table. He’d been in a chair on his knees and now he was scrambling down from it, causing it to tilt alarmingly before the baby-proofing Charms kicked in and stuck all four of its feet firmly to the floor.

Oblivious to his brush with gravity, Harry hurtled toward the door, where James swung him into midair, squealing delightedly, then the two men who had spent the night as canines put their faces close to his tangled hair and breathed deeply. Lily, now standing beside her chair, leaned her hip against the table and smiled.

After a moment, Remus looked up, his eyes amber-gold in the slanting morning sunlight, and met her eye. He smiled, too. 

Sirius closed the door, the room was full of Harry’s happy chatter, and Lily felt with certainty that all was as it should be—or, at least, that they were on their way.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> fin! <3


End file.
